...author needs to understand what a fact is. None of the things mentioned in the first paragraph were ever "facts".

They're farking assertions, moron. It's like this: "We have evidence that shows that all the dinosaurs we've found so far have been cold-blooded". "Oh look we found one that may be warmblooded, maybe the other ones could have been warm blooded, too. Let's collect more evidence."

Nurglitch:joonyer: ...author needs to understand what a fact is. None of the things mentioned in the first paragraph were ever "facts".

They're farking assertions, moron. It's like this: "We have evidence that shows that all the dinosaurs we've found so far have been cold-blooded". "Oh look we found one that may be warmblooded, maybe the other ones could have been warm blooded, too. Let's collect more evidence."

Facts don't come from philosophy. They come from science.

What counts as facts really does come from philosophy. Once you have a philosophy, then you can get around to collecting facts in a fashion that is supported by evidence, and not prone to being fouled by bias or misconstrued by bad theory.

The fact is that the facts just are; the issue is with our ability to recognize the facts, and to act accordingly. For example, if your philosophy fetishizes the accumulation of facts at the expense of your reasons for accumulating facts, you may just end up with a collection of information rather than a system of knowledge.

Science is what gives us that knowledge. Without analysis, hypotheses and experiments to go along with the facts, you're right, you don't have much of meaning.

LarryDan43:Facts always have two sides which are debatable. You are entitled in a free country to decide which side makes the most sense to you and your life.

Um, no. That applies to a hypothesis. A theory goes a step beyond in that it consistently explains observable facts. Facts are the basic blocks in all this. Facts can be identified, concretely observed, consistently verified, otherwise, they are not facts. It is a difference between what we may think we know (which can be debatable) and things that can be demonstrated irrefutably. Someone else can probably word that better, but it is pointless to debate a fact. Demonstrate it to be untrue and it will no longer be a fact, just somthing we thought we knew.

Carn:Rapmaster2000: How come "scientists" can put a man on the moon, but they can't keep my feet from smelling? It's pretty obvious if you think about it. They didn't put a man on the moon. I'm a skeptic. I read Reason.

Gold Bond Medicated Foot Powder. You're welcome.

I'm saving my Gold Bond to counteract the imminent hyperinflation caused by Obama's Magic Money Printing Press. Gold Bond isn't just a piece of paper. Gold Bond has real, intrinsic value. When the shiat hits the fan, and you're burning dollars to keep warm, I'll be living the high life off of my stash of physical Gold Bond.

Yes, but the other 50% of the facts I have are 100% accurate. Actually, most people get their science "facts" from a high school science teacher, who majored in home economics or art history. It's no wonder that they get bad information.

See, this is why science should be trusted so rarely and faith will ultimately win in the end. I mean, let's look at science versus, say, Christianity. Jesus was born 2000 years ago, and since then Christianity has gone on truckin'. Meanwhile, science has been wrong (2000/45=44.444) almost 45 times. And each time it's wrong by half, so that's essentially a doubling of its wrongness every 90 years. That means that science has been rendered 100 percent wrong (2000/90=22.22) 22 times since Jesus, which is the equivalent of a 2200 percent error rate. It's astonishing people still get sucked in.

Another reason that personal knowledge decays is that people cling to selected "facts" as a way to justify their beliefs about how the world works. Arbesman notes, "We persist in only adding facts to our personal store of knowledge that jibe with what we already know, rather than assimilate new facts irrespective of how they fit into our worldview." All too true; confirmation bias is everywhere.

Herrrrr...deeeeeeeeerrrrrrr.... the problem isn't the facts or amount of information out there, its that we are not a society that values critical thinking skills so people become sticks in the mud. Information is worthless if you do not have the schema to processes it effectively